Game 88, Mariners at White Sox
Taijuan Walker vs. Hector Noesi, 11:10am
This isn’t the first time the M’s have faced Noesi, and it’s not the first time they’ve seen him since enthusiastically cutting him back in April. Still, this is his first start against his former team/enabler, and it’s M’s fans first chance to see him since he hooked up with pitching coach/reclamation guru Don Cooper. Many of you will remember that it took Cooper something like 25 minutes to turn Matt Thornton from homer-prone, fungible M’s reliever into one of the premier left-handed relievers in baseball. Could the same thing happen again?
If it does, it’s obviously going to take longer than it did with Thornton. Noesi’s improved a bit with the Sox, but that’s regression for you: he had nowhere to go but up. He’s still yielding too many HRs for a guy with his stuff, and while his K rate’s gone up, he’s both too hittable and too wild for that to matter too much. When the M’s acquired him, he looked to have the makings of a formidable sinker; even if he didn’t strike many out, the sinker should’ve allowed him to get grounders and avoid 0-2 HRs. Instead, he’s become an extreme fly ball guy, and his “sinker” now gets fewer grounders per ball in play than his four-seam fastball. The root of Noesi’s problems has always been the fastball. Batters have hit a remarkable 25 HRs off of his four-seamer in his career, including seven in two-strike counts. Coupled with that below-average sinker, and Noesi’s simply not able to get to his breaking stuff. He’s experimented with a cutter this season, and there may be something salvageable in his change-up, but for them to play, Noesi needs to spot his fastball far better than he has.
Cooper’s done some amazing work in the past, but his record isn’t exactly perfect. The fix with Thornton was a mechanical one, and that doesn’t appear to be Noesi’s problem. For whatever reason, Noesi likes to pitch up in the zone, but he hasn’t had the command to either get whiffs or avoid mistakes while doing so. That’s something Cooper could help with, but it’s probably not exactly news to Noesi.
Taijuan Walker makes his second start of the year for the M’s. He’s still throwing 95, still has the good slow curve, but he pitched a bit differently in his first start than he did last season. The story of 2013 was the development of Walker’s cutter, a hard (91mph) pitch with slider-like horizontal movement. Some scouts who saw it raved about it, while I never saw it when it was “on.” In any event, he threw very few (if any) against the Astros – the pitches coded as “cutters” came in with horizontal movement almost identical to his four-seamer. Maybe he saw that and ditched it in favor of his splitter/change, or maybe the M’s are making a conscious decision to have him go with the splitter against lefties instead. We’ll learn more today.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Buck, C
8: Ackley, LF
9: Miller, SS
SP: Walker
The M’s have moved Felix’s next start to Friday, so he’ll face Oakland instead of Minnesota, and potentially lining him up to start against Jeff Samardzija. No word yet on who’ll actually start that Thursday game in Minnesota.
Starting today in the M’s system are Erasmo Ramirez, Victor Sanchez, and Lukas Schiraldi.
Game 87, Mariners at White Sox
King Felix vs. Jose Quintana, 11:10am
Happy Felix Morning!
There’s nothing better after a night of parties, over-indulgence and explosions than watching Felix continue his run of dominance. His FIP is now below 2, driven by a remarkable walk rate and an even-more-remarkable dearth of HRs. Felix’s ground-ball tendencies have always helped him keep the ball in the park, but he’s refined his approach, and if this is evidence of a real skill, then Felix really has re-fashioned himself into a Kershaw-style uber-ace. Tony Blengino talked about this in a great post at Fangraphs last month. The gist is that while production on balls in play is much more volatile than the trusty three true outcomes, some pitchers show a clear, repeatable skill in minimizing damage on balls in play – they generate weaker contact than others. For many years, Felix was decidedly not one of them – it didn’t matter thanks to a great K rate and high grounder rates. This year, Felix is putting it all together and the results have been astonishing.
The one negative heading into today is the park. Felix has given up more HRs at US Cellular field than any other road stadium except Anaheim. He’s pitched eight games on the South Side and has given up more HRs than he has in *19* games in Arlington, or 17 in Oakland. It’s a HR-friendly place, as Roenis Elias can attest, but so’s Arlington. Felix just hasn’t fared particularly well there.
The M’s face Colombian lefty Jose Quintana, a completely uninteresting but remarkably effective starter. Originally signed by the Mets, and then released, then signed by the Yankees and released, re-signed, and re-released, he shot through the White Sox system to post a decent half-season in 2012. His K% improved markedly last year, and he’s maintained those gains this season. He too has cut his HRs-allowed, and has helped stabilize the Sox rotation behind Chris Sale. He uses a four-seam fastball at 92-93mph, along with a curve ball and change. The curve’s his best – he uses it against lefties and righties, and it’s an effective put-away pitch, and it’s helped him minimize his platoon splits.
The line-up:
1: Jones, CF
2: Bloomquist, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Saunders, RF
9: Miller, SS
SP: King Felix
The big news of the day is the blockbuster trade between Oakland and the other Chicago team. The A’s are sending their TWO top prospects, SS Addison Russell and OF Billy McKinney, along with SP Dan Straily to the Cubs in exchange for SPs Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel. The A’s have some room at the top of the division, but they’re clearly looking to fashion themselves into a dominant playoff team. Gray/Samardzija is a formidable twosome in a short series. But the price they paid was pretty high – Russell’s easily a top-20 prospect in baseball, and McKinney was their #1 pick in the 2013 draft. This is as big a trade as we’ve seen in some time. The obvious comparison is the Wil Myers-for-James Shields swap, but this one is both bigger and features teams in very different circumstances. Neither Russell nor McKinney is as MLB-ready as Myers was, but to be blatantly obvious for a minute, there are two of them.
Starting today in the M’s system are Jimmy Gilheeney, Stephen Landazuri, and Scott DeCecco.
Game 86, Mariners at White Sox
Roenis Elias vs. Chris Sale, 4:10pm
Happy Fourth of July. I’ve been away for several weeks wandering through a baseball desert, trying to bring the good news of Felix Hernandez to those who have never heard of, let alone been redeemed by, the Change-up Celestial.* It’s tough, but like any journey worth its own cost and hassle, that’s OK. I’m returning to an M’s team that’s 9 games over .500 – a record they’ve not seen since the end of the 2007 season. There are familiar issues; the team is hitting better, but they still can’t, you know, HIT the way other teams can. They brought up and then sent down Jesus Montero. They’re still playing a lot of Endy Chavez. But they’re winning, and they look like a team that can stick around the playoff race this season, and while it’s actually pretty great to just wake up and hear that the M’s won again, I’ve missed watching this team play.
Today, the M’s head to Chicago to take on Chris Sale and the White Sox. Jeff had a great post at Fangraphs talking about Sale’s evolution following some injury scares (including a DL trip that cost him a month earlier this season): he’s throwing a lot more change-ups and fewer sliders. What’s interesting is just how little it’s mattered. He still strikes out plenty, still shows good control, and is still devilishly hard to square up. That Sale is still an elite pitcher can’t be a huge surprise, but it highlights something that we M’s fans have known for a while. Great pitchers can throw any number of pitches and be successful. Young Felix was at least partially defined by the Royal Curve, the inhuman bender that hitters couldn’t adjust to after watching 97mph four-seamers. After his injury scare in April 2007, Felix hasn’t thrown THAT curve, and he hasn’t thrown as many overall. It didn’t really matter. Likewise, that Sale’s still Sale despite fewer sliders shouldn’t be that surprising. He still throws very hard and from a strange release point. He still faces overwhelmingly-right-handed line-ups, so you could argue that such a shift is overdue.
One thing Jeff pointed out in that article was that Sale’s generating a lot more foul balls this season. This has helped him pitch from favorable counts more than he has in previous seasons, and thus it’s not surprising to see that he’s posting his lowest walk rate. An underrated aspect of this development has been his sinker. He’s throwing fewer sinkers than ever in 2014, and it was never his main fastball. He’s throwing his change-up more, and he’s also throwing it harder than he has in previous seasons, all while his four-seam fastball velocity drops slightly. At this point, his sinker and change-up have essentially identical movement – both have tons of horizontal movement and very little vertical rise. The only difference between the change and sinker is velocity, and while it’s still substantial, it’s no longer the 10-11mph it was in 2013. With batters now expecting more change-ups, Sale’s used his sinker as a get-ahead pitch, throwing it first-pitch much more often than he does in any other count. And it’s his sinker that’s seen the biggest increase in foul%, moving from 16% fouls last year to over 20% this year. That’s still a tiny sample considering Sale’s missed time this year, but it’s an interesting adjustment, and it’s one we’ve seen from a few pitchers this year (Hisashi Iwakuma among them).
Roenis Elias has made his own adjustments. The first time we saw him in Spring Training, the thing that jumped out was his variable release points, especially against lefties. Versus righties, he was almost traditional, with a 3/4 to high 3/4 delivery. Against lefties, he’d occasionally drop down to an almost Sale-esque low 3/4 release. At the time, the M’s talked about how they’d clean that up and have him use the same delivery to everyone…and then Elias ignored that and maintained a couple of discrete, identifiable deliveries against lefties. But over the last month, he’s looking more and more, uh, normal. The gap in vertical release to lefties and righties is all but gone, and while there’s still a gap in horizontal movement, that looks more like a shift on the rubber (ie. moving towards first base a bit vs. lefties) than a change in his motion. I’m not even going to speculate why he’d do it, but while repeatability and consistency are prized by scouts, I love seeing pitchers adapt and react. It seems to me like a separate skill or tool, and while you certainly don’t want a pitcher to overhaul his delivery or pick up a new pitch every time he has a so-so start, when guy like Felix or Sale have fundamentally altered their approach, it’s important to demonstrate the ability and willingness to evolve.
Finally, I’m not the only one returning today. DH Corey Hart’s all better now, and will probably think twice about attempting a stolen base the rest of the year. LF Cole Gillespie was DFA’d to make room on the 25-man roster.
Go M’s! Baseball! America!
1: Bloomquist, SS
2: Jones, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Saunders, RF
9: Ackley, LF
SP: Elias
Tacoma heads to Fresno for the 4th of July Game – Andrew Carraway starts tonight. Last night’s big fireworks show at Cheney Stadium was preceded by a brilliant start from Jordan Pries, who’s come out of nowhere to be an important prospect for the M’s. The Rainiers won 5-1, as Pries went 7IP giving up 1R with 7Ks.
Other starters tonight include Tyler Olson for Jackson, David Holman for High Desert and Jefferson Medina for Everett – Everett’s the only local team playing today, so if you want to push your intake of America to its fullest, check out the AquaSox.
* “Wait, so he plays in the city where DeAndre Yedlin plays? Right, so, uh, can we talk more about Yedlin again?”
Game 85, Mariners at Astros
Chris Young vs. Brad Peacock, 11:10 am
How about them ‘Ners, right?
I had intended to use the bulk of this preview space to talk about Chris Young, and how what he’s doing is bonkers, but I woke up yesterday morning to find at Fangraphs Tony Blengino’s “Chris Young: Is it Real or is it Safeco, which goes into far more detail than I had intended to myself. The summary is that Young is off on his own little island in the middle of the ocean. Among the other things I could add or find interesting, his BB% is higher than league average by 1.5%, as well as being above his career marks, though he has multiple full seasons in double-digits. His K% is also about 8% off league average and close to 7% off his career norms which, granted, were mostly pre-surgery. And his BABIP is eighty points lower than the league partly because of all those infield fly balls. That said, it’ll be harder to get the ball to stay in the park in Houston.
As much amusement and intrigues as there are in trying to analyze High Mariner, I suppose there’s the other guy on the mound to consider, though Marc has probably covered all the basics before. The White Sox series will be more relaxed. Brad Peacock, in his 72.2 innings has the same xFIP as he did last year in 83.1 innings and that’s not something you see every day. Ks, BABIP, and walks have all trended in the wrong direction, but he’s stranding more and not allowing as many home runs. He’s scaled back the fastball this year and increased usage of both of his breaking balls and the results, I suppose, are all right. Despite the fact that he throws two breaking balls and doesn’t show much of a change-up, he’s had reverse splits in the majors, contrasted with his minor league work, which ran as expected. I was prepared to complain about the knee-jerk “play the splits” lineups, but I suppose this one could be excused.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C John Buck
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
Your other news: Jarred Cosart, on twitter, described his performance as “[running] into a buzz saw.” Jeff wrote about Taijuan Walker this morning. Mavericks pitcher and local product Andrew Kittredge struck out five in an inning, which was neither the first time it has happened nor the only time recently. Paxton threw on flat ground today, is still alive, should get another bullpen and then a sim game shortly.
Another thing I’ve thought about recently: Minute Maid Park, Tropicana Field, two AL stadiums that you could nickname “The Juice Box.”
Game 84, Mariners at Astros
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Jarred Cosart, 5:10 pm
Driving home from work last night, I realized that the Young vs. Bauer game in the last homestand marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Mariners playing their last game at the Kingdome, and while I had known about it, I had completely forgotten to mention it. I apologize for this regrettable omission.
Writing up intra-division pitching match-ups can be a bit of a pain. I know that if a guy hasn’t pitched against the M’s this season, I can talk a little bit about his arsenal, what he’s been up to relative to prior seasons, various introductory level bits of data. With the teams that we see with unbalanced regularity over the course of a season, writing up pitching match-ups in that style is like bumping into someone for the third or fourth time and realizing that you’re still trying to get their name down. In my defense, this isn’t my regular shtick and I’m not accustomed to thinking about major league players on other teams except as names to attach to the game I’m listening to.
Cosart is a late-rounder who did all right by himself in spite of that. Classic “put it in play” groundballer whose weakness is not so much elevating pitches to where they’re hit out of the park, but missing too often and not inducing enough swings to compensate for that with Ks. He’s basically a fastball/curve guy too, whereas groundball-oriented pitchers usually prefer sliders as their breaking pitch. There are splits from left to right, but left-handers tend to lose a little bit in average and make it up in power numbers. To no real surprise, he allows a greater slugging at home, so we could have another dinger-tastic game in the offing. I could be down with that.
Of course, it could also be a bad thing because ‘Kuma hasn’t been ‘Kuma the last couple of outings. Was it the neck thing lingering? Is it something else? What we’ve had the past couple of times out is a lower groundball and strand rates than we’re accustomed to seeing and a higher BABIP. Home runs have been allowed each time, but unlike the Erasmo Ramirez variety of home run, they have not been preceded by multiple walks. He’s also had a rather short leash, not exceeding 80 pitches either time out. Naturally, my distracted brain was drawing conclusions and saying “yeah, he was throwing too many pitches and that’s why he was pulled,” but nope, wasn’t happening, and you look at his strike% and it really isn’t all that bad. He was at 71% in Kansas City and 67.5% against Boston, both better-than-league-average marks by a sizable margin. The problem has more been a good amount of not-good contact. I wish I had something more substantive than that, but I’m radio-only for most of my baseball consumption and that makes objectivity a more difficult task. I try to visualize what’s happening on the field and all I get is the South Side of Chicago and Southern League baseball centering around Memphis.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
Go ‘Ners!
The Mariners Tried To Trade Dustin Ackley
That’s the headline I would use, were I a worthless sensationalist. Odds are, you’ve seen this by now, but not too long ago the Astros had their internal data system hacked, and where a few years ago that would’ve meant we’d get our eyes on hand-drawn sketches of a flying giraffe in a baseball cap, these Astros actually keep track of relevant baseball conversations, so we get to consider nuggets from what were supposed to be private exchanges. We get to see, for example, how Jeff Luhnow tried to market the exhaustingly mediocre Bud Norris. We don’t get to learn all that much, to be honest, and this is the sort of thing that could happen to almost any organization, but there is a little bit where the Mariners play a role, so, we’re going to do this. We’re going to turn this into a story that’s Mariners-relevant.
A blockquote of a note from last November:
[Luhnow] spoke with [Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik]. Jazk Z said he’s getting a lot of calls from Clubs asking him if he can get Castro from us. Jack Z asked if we would do Ackley for Castro. JL said no, we wouldn’t do that. Jack Z asked if there was someone he could add to Ackley. JL said he would take a look.
That’s basically it. If Luhnow took a look, there’s nothing else on the matter in the data dump, and obviously the Mariners never added Jason Castro. Based on the wording, and based on Mike Zunino, it’s not that the Mariners were really trying to acquire Castro so much as they were trying to facilitate a three- or four-way trade that would bring Castro to Seattle and then move him somewhere else. The Mariners were involved with teams interested in Jason Castro, and from those teams the Mariners would’ve wanted help, but we can’t identify the desired help, so this doesn’t really go any further.
Why would teams ask the Mariners to get Castro, instead of get him themselves? Maybe, based on the conversations with the Astros, the Mariners seemed like a better trade fit. Or maybe teams just felt better trying to take advantage of Jack Zduriencik than Jeff Luhnow.
GM: Luhnow’s driving a hard bargain.
GM: He’s probably not going to let up.
GM: Let’s try to get our guy from Jack.
GM: Let’s go ahead and try to involve Jack in this.
The meat: the initial offer. If this is all true, Jack Zduriencik tried to get Jason Castro for Dustin Ackley. It’s not a bad attempt, in that Jason Castro is a lot more valuable than Dustin Ackley is. Luhnow, naturally, turned the offer down, and it doesn’t seem things went much further. A year ago, by WAR, Castro was four wins better than Ackley, and while Ackley had a successful second half, and while Ackley is under team control a year longer, Castro’s a catcher with skills both at the plate and behind it. It’s evident that Zduriencik valued Ackley quite a bit lower than Castro, given that this was offer No. 1. It’s evident that Zduriencik isn’t totally committed to Ackley in the present or the future, which is wise given that Ackley looks more and more like a total bust with every passing day. Maybe what he needs is a different organization, or maybe what he needs is just more time, but the best thing about Dustin Ackley is what he’s done in Triple-A, and he’s approaching 2,000 trips in the bigs. Over this season’s last month, he’s slugged .227.
There are a couple more things we can take away from this that are at least somewhat relevant to the Mariners:
(1) The Mariners aren’t totally opposed to a move of significance within the division. I guess we already knew that, based on the John Jaso/Michael Morse three-team trade, so this isn’t major news, but while a lot of people like to think that dealing within a division is a non-starter, that doesn’t hold up to reason and it doesn’t seem to bother the Mariners all that much. Unless, of course, Zduriencik doesn’t value Ackley at all, and he was just trying to rip the Astros off. But if that were true, Ackley wouldn’t be starting for the Mariners right now. Zduriencik might value Ackley too much. The point — the Mariners were willing to send Ackley and more to the Astros, and the Astros play in the same division as the Mariners.
(2) The Mariners aren’t the only front office that makes laughably lopsided trade proposals. Something I’ve heard multiple times before is that Zduriencik has a habit of making offers that are borderline insulting. And that, of course, can be off-putting, but it can also be a way to kick off a negotiation, given that you have to start somewhere and you might as well factor in some ground to give. Luhnow was acting kind of crazy about the Bud Norris sweepstakes, in that he figured there was even such thing as a Bud Norris sweepstakes, but Norris still ultimately got moved, and not for very much. I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do to make lopsided offers, but the Mariners aren’t alone on that island. Truth be told, it’s probably pretty common. It might just be a way to start a dialogue. Maybe it even lightens the mood! I don’t have a good gauge of general manager senses of humor.
Something we learned about the Mariners today: early last offseason, they expressed interest in trading a not very good player for a considerably better player. Those trade talks didn’t go anywhere, and so Dustin Ackley is still here and still disappointing. There’s something to be said about the fact that, this quickly after being drafted, Ackley wasn’t good enough to land Jason Castro on his own, but whatever would be said wouldn’t be new and it wouldn’t be surprising. Dustin Ackley’s kind of been crap. Especially lately, but even several months ago, he was a man with a fading memory of excellence.
A big big part of me is glad this didn’t happen to the Mariners’ front office. An equally-sized part of me is sad.
Game 83, Mariners at Astros
Unlike assorted other scrubs (I am glaring at Josh Tomlin), Collin McHugh has also been good against other baseball teams, though not quite as good as he was against us on April 22nd. There have been fewer Ks and more walks at times, but he’s gone 6+ in five of his twelve outings so far. One exception is the last time we faced him in Houston, May 4th, when the Mariners touched him up for more runs than in any of his other starts and knocked him out before the fourth inning, his shortest start of the year. So either the Mariners will be dominated by him, or they’ll kick ass, or somewhere in between.
You aren’t here to read about Collin McHugh, you’re here to read about Taijuan Walker. As grudgingly as I would go to something that presents itself as “Fantasy” content, the Baseball America “What To Expect” Profile does a lot of good to talk about his repertoire, strengths/weaknesses, and his most recent outing. That last one was his first complete game shutout ever as a pro! Wow! (He’s only ever had one other complete game)
The story from his time rehabbing, of course, is larger than that. He was all right in High Desert and Jackson back in the first couple of weeks of April before his shoulder started balking again and he needed to go back. Unlike the more depressing scenarios that played out with Hultzen, he was able to pitch again for Tacoma. Out of the six starts he made there, he’s hit the five inning mark or more in his last four starts, walked one or fewer four times (and three or more twice), and has struck out seven or more twice, with all the other outings being in the threes or fours. This isn’t super meaningful since we’re talking three innings or fewer with at least two of those outings. What I’m trying to drive at by saying all this is just to indicate that his command can be good or bad. The Astros don’t have much position player value because their defensive WAR, according to Fangraphs, has been the worst in the league, but they’re roughly in the middle of the pack for offense. Many things could happen.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
Other stuff? Mac says that neither Smoak nor Hart will be back this week. Kyle Seager was AL Player of the Week, Taijuan Walker was PCL Pitcher of the Week, Daniel Missaki was APL Pitcher of the Week. Paxton threw a 35-pitch bullpen that went all right. Joel Pineiro, in triple-A, tested positive for a banned stimulant and was released by the Angels.
Go ‘Ners!
Podcast: A Fortnight Done Well
Monday morning podcast(s) continues/begins.
Apologies for last week’s absence, but I was not in a place able to record. And unfortunately this week’s podcast was shorter than our usual. And next week, with the 4th, may be delayed and/or short as well. We’ll see, but will try to deliver you as much awesome as we’re capable of. Thank you for you listenership.
Podcast with Jeff and Matthew: Direct link! || iTunes link! || RSS/XML link!
Thanks again to those that helped support the show and/or StatCorner work in general last week, and in the past, and hopefully in the future. It’s truly appreciated.
Game 82, Indians at Mariners
Felix Hernandez vs. T.J. House, 1:10 PM
Raise your hand if you had heard of T.J. House before this series. Okay, I can’t see that from here but I’m going to assume that nothing is happening. T.J. House, real name: Glenn Anthony House, has never been a top prospect and is the latest in a storied line of some guys who end up making major league starts for baseball teams. His pitch selection has been roughly 60% FB, 20% slider, 20% change, with the fastball clocking in around 91 mph. The slider appears to be his best pitch. He hasn’t been good overall and is significantly worse against right-handers, giving up more walks and extra-base hits. Seriously, his RH numbers are .314/.392/.529. This means we get a different looking lineup.
SS Willie Bloomquist
CF Michael Saunders
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
C Mike Zunino
1B Logan Morrison
RF Stefen Romero
DH John Buck
LF Cole Gillespie
To touch on the only real positive of last night’s game: Maurer in relief looks good. We’ve all been burned by the erratic nature of pitching and bullpen arms before, so I’m not making any long-term declarations as to what might happen, but he looks like what we thought we were getting with the first year of Carter Capps.
After the game, we also got confirmation that Taijuan Walker will be starting tomorrow. Hooray.
Happy Felix Day.
Game 81, Indians at Mariners
The halfway point? THE HALFWAY POINT?!? This is going up early because hey, I won’t be around later.
Roenis Elias vs. Josh Tomlin, 7:10 pm PT
Roenis Elias was last seen, I think, during last night’s game as he was pounding the dugout railing and cheering after Endy Chavez’ home run. Endy Chavez now has a 94 wRC+, which is eighth-best mark on the team, or just sixth-best if you pull out the limited samples from Iwakuma and Montero hitting. Even numbers dig the long ball.
Josh Tomlin was last seen by the Mariners on April 19th of 2012, a game in which he threw 71 of 96 pitches for strikes and ended up K’ing seven while allowing just five hits and one run over eight innings. It was plainly his best start in a year that he ultimately ended up being worth -0.1 WAR. This year, he’s had some value and his strikeout rate, at nearly 20%, is considerably better than the ~13% clip he’s been at for most of his career. As ever, he doesn’t walk dudes and one of the easier ways to get him into trouble is to hit a home run. Like Endy Chavez hit a home run. Just last night. Help.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
I didn’t mention it last night in that edition of the minor league news, but remember how I was loudly complaining about the lack of at-bats for Choi? Turns out they had a solution in the works. With Hart and Smoak occupying DH and first base as rehabbers, the workaround has been that last night and in the AM part of today’s day/night doubleheader, Choi has been playing left field.
You may want to ask me how I expect that will work out and I really have no idea. I’ve never seen Choi at a position where scouting reports would even talk about his speed, so I haven’t the least idea as to how readily he might be able to run down flyballs. I would assume that because he’s played third and catcher in the past, the arm works in his favor. Additionally, he’s known to be a hard worker, so what he doesn’t pick up immediately he’ll improve on in time. It’s versatility.